"With my revolver in my right hand and my knife in my left, I crept slowly forward. Just ahead of me I could see something stirring, and I fired. There was a scramble of hurrying feet, and then silence.
"When I came to the cache, it was deserted. I should have delayed till daylight, but my hunger was so great that I could not wait. Breaking it open, I sat down to gorge myself on the first thing that came handy—some raw fish which had been buried there. Something moved behind me; before I had time to turn properly round, it had leapt on my back. I could not draw my revolver, there was no time; my only weapon was my knife. I saw the great face and eyes peering over my left shoulder and made a downward stab, gashing open a deep wound from the ear to the lower fangs. With a cry that was almost human, the beast jumped back and vanished.
"When day had come, I took as much of the provisions as I could carry, and made good my escape. I was surprised at the old man's absence, and fearful lest at any moment he might turn up. I did not cross the river at the mouth, but worked my way along the right-hand bank, intending to cross higher up and nearer the hut, where it was more narrow. At noon I made a halt and snatched a little sleep, for I had purposed to travel through the night. Some hours after darkness had fallen, I began to be haunted with the old sense that something was following. At first I heard no sound, for I was travelling over open ground. Presently I had to enter a thicket, and there I was made certain; for I could distinctly hear the snapping of branches, as if bent and forced aside by the passage of some forest animal. I pushed rapidly ahead, for it was not the safest place in which to be attacked. As I glanced across my shoulder and from side to side, I continually caught glimpses of a thing which was grey.
"Sometimes I was certain that I saw a face peering out at me from above the brake; but whether it was that of the old man or of the timber-wolf, I could not tell—strangely enough, their faces seemed to me to be one and the same. When the day came, I felt that I was free again, and making camp I slept. The same thing happened next night, and the night after that, for it took me more than three days to make the homeward journey. But each night, as I moved farther away from the Forbidden River's mouth, the creature which followed had to traverse a longer and longer trail to come up with me, as I approached nearer to my destination.
"After I had crossed the river and reached the hut, he rarely came; and then only when the dusk had fallen early because of clouds or rain. Yet there were times, just before the dawn, when I fancied that I could see him watching me from the bank."
"But what has this got to do with the half-breed?" Granger broke in impatiently.
"That's what I'd like to know myself. But I don't know, so I'm simply giving you facts as they happened. The horror of that wolf's face, which I confused with my memory of the old man's, made a deep impression on me; I suppose that's why I've said so much about it.
"However mistaken you may have been about the Forbidden River never having been travelled, you were correct enough when you told me that it was haunted. . . . And it isn't pleasant to be living a five-days' journey from the nearest white man, in a place where the beasts look like lost souls and have the eyes of the damned."
Granger shrugged his shoulders, "And the half-breed?" he inquired.
"The half-breed turned up five weeks after my return from the cache. I'd been out cutting cord-wood and, when I came back, he was sitting at the door of the hut. How long he'd been there, I could not tell; I had been absent for perhaps two hours. I tried to find out how he'd come, but he pretended not to understand; so, as I know no Cree, our conversation wasn't very lengthy. At first, however, in spite of the danger of his discovering who I was and what I was doing there, I was pleased to see him, for I was getting moody and low-spirited with living by myself. I tried to be content with supposing that he was a trapper, who had strayed out of his district and had lighted on me by accident.